“Um, well…” I started, not knowing what to say. It was the last thing I expected Dania to offer. Not after everything. Not after years ofnothing.
“I usually stay up until late. Call it conditioning after years of barely sleeping at all,” she said with a smirk. “So if you want to brave my couch, come by. The door is around the back of the pharmacy. If not, that’s fine,” she said, holding Lyla tight to her chest and leaving the store.
A large, very vocal part of me wanted to blow her off. I had stopped speaking to Dania for a very important reason.
She had been a bad friend.
The worst kind of person.
She hadn’t cared about me or anyone else. She only thought about her wants and needs.
But there was the softer, quieter side of me that remembered the girl who had protected me at the cost of herself.
I remembered how she would come into my room after Mr. Beretti had cornered her. She would crawl into my bed, never crying in front of me, but needing my company. She had been shattered and so vulnerable, and I couldn’t help but feel responsible for her being that way. Because I had known that it was me that Mr. Beretti had been after. Dania had just made sure I wouldn’t have to suffer for at least one night.
Then I thought about how her angry words to me after she found my acceptance letter to the College of Baltimore. How she, in her Dania Blevins way, had pushed me out the door and towards my future.
The thought of spending the night on Jeb’s gross couch gave me hives.
I picked up the phone and dialed Flynn’s number.
“Hey. There’s no way I’m going to make it home tonight,” I began, not sure how to tell Flynn the truth.
“The weather is bad. The news said we would get another four inches tonight. I don’t want you to drive. But I don’t like you staying there,” Flynn said, sounding serious.
“Well, I’m not going to stay at the store,” I continued slowly.
“I don’t understand.”
“Dania came into JAC’s tonight with her daughter,” I started to say but Flynn cut me off.
“You don’t like Dania. But her daughter’s cute. Why were you talking to Dania?” He sounded upset. I didn’t like him sounding that way. I didn’t even question how he knew what Dania’s daughter looked like.
“Look Flynn, Dania was my best friend for years. I haven’t really spoken to her since I left three years ago. She offered her couch to crash on. It’s better than staying in the storeroom,” I argued.
Flynn was quiet for a long time. I could hear his breathing so I knew he hadn’t hung up.
“Dania isn’t a nice person, Ellie. I worry that if you are around her, you won’t be nice anymore either.”
There it was. The real reason that I, too, had been resistant to having anything to do with Dania Blevins.
She had always brought out the worst in me. And while I knew that I had matured and grown stronger, I still worried about the part of me that was just as ugly, just as mean, as Dania ever was.
“I love you, Flynn. That will never change,” I said sincerely, meaning it totally. Completely.
“And spending the night on Dania’s couch doesn’t mean we’re going to be best friends again. But she and I have some things to say to each other. I think it’s important,” I told him, hoping that he understood what I was saying.
“I don’t like it, Ellie,” he said, his voice quieter than it had been before.
“Please just trust me, Flynn. That’s all I ask,” I implored.
“I trust you. I always have.”
Chapter Fourteen
-Ellie-
I loved to watch Flynn draw.
